


Ghosts Are Transparent

by PhantomEngineer



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-03
Updated: 2018-06-03
Packaged: 2019-05-17 19:51:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14838107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhantomEngineer/pseuds/PhantomEngineer
Summary: Nagini doesn't quite kill Severus. But he's not really alive anymore either. Just a spirit, incapable of interacting with anyone, outside of his still living body. He doesn't mind. For the first time in his life, he's free to do as he pleases. He just hadn't expected so much of is freedom to involve watching Harry Potter, just like his life had always revolved around keeping the boy safe. He hadn't expected Harry to be so upset, or to keep visiting his empty body, spilling his secrets to it.





	Ghosts Are Transparent

“He’s not dead, though...” Severus heard Poppy’s familiar voice say, almost at a distance though she was right behind him. He wasn’t paying her any attention. He knew he wasn’t dead. People could see and hear ghosts. Even Potter knew that. Ghosts were transparent. Transparent wasn’t invisible. And yet he was there, listening and aware, just no longer in his body. 

It was everything he had ever wished for. Finally, he was completely free. He could do what he wanted, without people watching him, judging him. Using him for all sorts of causes. He felt stronger too, lighter, almost younger. Like all the weight and stress of his life had just melted away. He ran down the corridors of Hogwarts, delighting in the fact that he now could. He could do whatever he felt like, for the first time in his life. So he ran and gloried in his freedom, flittering from one place to the next with reckless abandon.

He went out of the castle, sweeping effortlessly across the grounds, pausing in front of Albus’s grave. There he stopped, a conflicted mess of emotions. Emotions that for so long he had kept buried, in part out of necessity. Now, he could feel whatever he wanted, let his feelings reign. There was no more need to keep everything in tight control so he could look Voldemort in the face and lie. No more need to play a part that had filled him with revulsion.

It was hard to really know what he felt, standing in front of that grave. He had killed the man that laid within it. He had been the one to strike that final blow, an execution so clean and clinical. A death requested by Albus himself. A death that was wholly inevitable. A death that he had wanted to prevent but had been hopelessly unable to. A death he felt a deep, aching guilt for as well as a betrayed anger. He could still hear the words ringing in his ears, as he begged Albus to consider his soul, wondering if the man he had come to love so ardently had always seen him as so utterly beyond saving, still judged him as something despicable deserving only disgust.

It still hurt, that idea that he was beyond redemption despite how hard he had tried, that he could never be worthy of forgiveness no matter how much he gave to the cause. No matter what he had sacrificed for Albus, and Lily’s son. The harsh reminders that clung to him, how he had chosen to be a Death Eater, had chosen to call Lily a mudblood. How he could never undo anything, how he could never begin to seek forgiveness. How the only thing he could do was to seek to protect Potter from the shadows. Harry. The poor boy who had been raised to be sent off to die in the name of all that was good. It had horrified him, and still he couldn’t believe how calm Albus had been. As if Albus had never cared, for all the love he had seemed to shower on the boy.

And the accusation, that he was as incapable of love as Voldemort. That his love for Lily could fade, when she was the first person who had ever truly been kind to him. His first and last friend. The idea that he could teach the students and not care for them, not be devastated at the idea of their deaths, as if somehow the idea of him having a shred of human decency was so unbelievable. As if he wouldn’t be disturbed by the idea of allowing Lily’s poor son to grow up just so he could be finally killed by Voldemort, executed as the Dark Lord had attempted when he was just a baby.

Yet even with those swirling, conflicting sensations of anger, of betrayal, of never ever being good enough, he also felt the love and respect that had just swelled as he worked under him, serving as a member of his staff but also as his spy. Serving Albus constantly, as the man who could be asked to do anything, far beyond any of the other members of the Order. The moments of pride, at feeling like he was trusted and respected. The moments of despair as he thought how he was asked to take those risks, do those awful things because he could never be loved or treated like any of the good people. In the end it didn’t matter. He had made his destiny, he was the spy. He was the murderer. He killed Albus Dumbledore. 

He wasn’t sure how long he stayed there, frozen in thought, lost in memories. His heart breaking over and over again as his mind went over and over the same thought processes eternally caught in a never-ending loop. Eventually, he pulled himself from the spot where he was on the verge of growing roots, of winding up metaphorically covered in moss. 

He didn’t really know what to do. He hadn’t ever really been free. His childhood had been dominated by his father and mother, both pulling him in different directions as the constant pawn in their eternal war against each other. His teenage years restricted by the rules of Hogwarts, just like any other student. Only he had also been ruled by the constant torment meted out on him by the Marauders and the subtle intricacies of Slytherin House politics that dictated how he could behave. After that came Voldemort, and a lifetime on his knees, branded like the cattle that grazed on the fields outside of Cokeworth he had seen one time on the train down to King’s Cross. Even as he had shaken those chains away he had only replaced one master for another, and that master had required him to continue to serve the first one just as devotedly, only without loyalty.

He went back to his body, abandoned in the Hospital Wing. It was not alone. Poppy he might have expected, it was after all her job to care for anyone in the castle. Even him. Even though she had rarely ever cared for him, as he always preferred to suffer alone or do his best to fix whatever was wrong, his mistrust of her a hangover from his schooldays. Potter, Harry, he was not expecting.

For a moment he hesitated, worrying. Moving close to the boy who was barely a boy anymore but rather a young man on the cusp of adulthood, trying to ascertain if there was anything wrong with him. All the unholy delight at discovering that despite the odds and all Albus had said Harry had once again defied all that was expected, had somehow managed to die and not die. He had fulfilled the prophecy and somehow Severus had kept his promise, even though he had given him the damning information that said he had to die. But there was nothing wrong with Harry, nothing but the strained expression of grief battling with exhaustion.

“I don’t know what it is,” Poppy was saying to Harry, sounding heartbroken, “His body is alive but he just isn’t in it. But he should be. It makes no sense. It’s as if he had been given the Dementor’s Kiss. His soul is no longer there.”

“No,” Harry objected, “There were no Dementors. He was bleeding, and maybe poisoned, I’m not sure exactly about Nagini’s bite. He did something to let his memories spill out for me to collect as he died, which I did.”

“He didn’t die,” Poppy insisted, “Though maybe it looked like it. His body is still alive, though it was in a bad condition. I thought once I healed it, he would wake up. But he hasn’t. His body is still able to do things like move and eat when prompted, but he’s just so chillingly empty…”

“Could it be because of the memories?” Harry asked, “That he somehow poured himself out of his body?”

Poppy shrugged, “I don’t know. I’ve never heard of that before, but between you and Severus you seem to be redefining what can be considered possible. So maybe. Maybe he is somewhere and all we have to do is wait for him to come back to his body. At least he will be relatively easy to look after, but he needs supervision. Though really, I don’t know what he needs. Maybe there really is nothing left to return.”

There was nothing Harry could say to that. He sighed, and reached out a hand to touch Severus’s hand. Severus felt nothing, as he was no longer in his body. It was strange to watch his body, sitting there vacantly. A bandage around his neck, the potions seeping their way slowly through his bloodstream. He didn’t feel any particular desire to return to being inside it. To return to the life of constantly being at the beck and call of others, of having to struggle on throughout everything. He had found his freedom and he wasn’t about to relinquish it. He knew that there was no one to miss him. A gap in the Hogwarts teaching staff, but no one had ever really wanted him to number amongst that group. He could be replaced, and his replacement would make everyone else happier. The staff members would prefer anyone to him, especially after the way he had treated them as Headmaster. The students had always hated him, and would be delighted to have him gone. They had hated him before he had been Headmaster. Just a continuation of being hated by the entire student body when he had been a student himself. Even his Slytherins held little affection for him, of that he had no illusions. Too many of them were raised in the pureblood society that Voldemort had dreamed of. A poor halfblood as a teacher was no more deserving of respect than the poor halfblood he had been as a student. 

He followed Harry. He didn’t know what else to do. He couldn’t read or cast spells. He couldn’t mix potions or speak to anyone. He could merely exist, think and go places. So he went with Harry. So much of his life had been devoted to watching over him that it seemed only natural. Even though there was no longer anything he could do to protect Harry should there be anything to threaten him, as he no longer had a body. Even though there should no longer be any danger to him now that Voldemort had finally been completely defeated.

There was something relaxing in doing nothing. In not really existing. It would probably have been easier if he actually was dead, but Severus wasn’t sure if he really wanted that. Death seemed like a big thing. Albus had described it as if it was an adventure waiting to happen, but Severus didn’t want another adventure. He just wanted to be alone and at peace. And now he got to see the world at peace, no longer under the shadow of Voldemort, without having to do anything. Without having to face the courts for his crimes, without having to live in amongst those that hated him.

He knew, as he drifted languidly after Harry what would happen. It was the way things always were, the way things always had been. He’d seen it before, after all. The hero (James, Harry) defeats the evil creature (Severus, Voldemort) and gets the girl (Lily, Ginevra Weasley) for a happy ending. Only, as he watched, that wasn’t what happened. He didn’t pay full attention, as he no longer needed to. He could let his concentration wander and there was no longer a risk of anyone dying on his watch due to his negligence. He could simply fade away into nothingness.

Harry had got a house in Godric’s Hollow, as Severus might have expected. But it was a small one, and it seemed almost lonely. Just Harry, there alone with very little else. No more possessions than had always been in his school trunk. He was rarely at home, throwing himself passionately into Auror training with a fervour that almost surprised Severus. He had rarely seen Harry be passionate about learning. His tendency to challenge and question his teachers hadn’t changed though.

It seemed almost as if he was avoiding his friends and his house. He kept going back to the Hospital Wing to look at the body that Severus had once occupied. Severus had been uncomfortable the first few times. Harry seemed to be too, as if he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to think. Poppy seemed only too happy to leave him to it, continuing on with her job, as if she trusted Harry.

“I’m happy for her,” Harry was saying, having decided that Severus’s vacant body was the ideal person to confession his deepest secrets to, which infuriated Severus for some reason, “Ginny and Luna are happy together and I want them to be happy. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt like hell. I know I’ll get over it, I just need a little time. It’s just a bit awkward now, that’s all. Between them and me. And between all of us, really.”

He sighed, and Severus thought again of the previous year, the year he had been Headmaster. Weasley and Lovegood, always together, blonde and ginger hair always so close they intermingled. It made sense. It just wasn’t the happy ending that was supposed to happen. Harry was supposed to marry the girl of his dreams and name his children after the Marauders, that was the way things were. 

So Severus kept drifting, watching Harry go through his life. Just as he had always done while he had been properly alive. Wondering about the boy he had spent his life protecting, only to offer him up as a sacrifice to the combined machinations of Albus and Voldemort. Not quite as bad as he had initially assumed. Not nearly as good as much of the wizarding world believed. Just a boy, who was barely a boy anymore but on the verge of being a young man. A young man who had been through things he should never have experienced, let alone so young. 

“I’ve been reading,” Harry said one day, to Severus, not realising that the spirit was lingering beside Harry rather than his own body. Then, Harry laughed, as if it was a joke, interrupting himself.

“I know,” he said wryly, “I bet you would never believe such a thing. Me, reading? But I have been. I guess now I know that there’s a lot I don’t know. You never saw it, because it was always against you and always something to be hidden, but I can be quite passionate about discovering everything about whatever I’m curious about.”

He was still for a moment before continuing more seriously, “I was reading about the Dementor’s Kiss. It was the only thing I could think of that was close. I think I may have begun to exhaust everything about Occlumency. Shame I didn’t do that when you were trying to teach me. I might have learnt then, and maybe things would have been easier for the both of us.”

There was a heavy sigh, as if Harry was reluctant to remember, though whether it was the past or his readings Severus didn’t know, “It’s a bit awful, isn’t it? The Dementor’s Kiss. I suppose I need to be aware of that, if I’m going to be an Auror. There was this case, though. A woman, called Hermione believe it or not. Hermione Williams. She claimed relations with a couple of people given the Kiss, and through that they realised that she couldn’t be related or engaged or whatever to all of them. She was keeping them alive, and harvesting their organs to sell on the black market. Regrowing them until the potions didn’t work any more. It’s all a bit grim. I don’t even know how to begin selling anything on the black market, let alone human organs. Though maybe I’m going to have to learn more about illegal stuff, to be an Auror. But I wouldn’t let anything like that happen to you. I can’t let you die. I just wish I knew whether there was anything that could be done…”

Severus didn’t have anything to say to that. He didn’t say anything anymore. He couldn’t, not when his vocal chords were still in his body. Ghosts could speak, but he wasn’t a ghost. Just a drifting consciousness separated from his body. He just listened and watched. It was stupid, in a way. He could go anywhere and see anything, and yet he kept close to Harry just as he always had, and Harry kept coming back to his body as if he couldn’t let it go. Taking his body for gentle walks in the grounds while the house elves repaired the damaged castle, as if the gentle sunlight would encourage Severus to return to his physical being. He couldn’t feel anything anymore. There were no sensations without the nerves to detect them. He wondered, with a detached curiosity, why it was that he could see and hear, but it didn’t really matter that much to him. He just could. Just as Harry puzzled over why all that had been inside of Severus had spilled out of him along with his memories, leaving nothing but that empty husk.

So he continued. He continued observing Harry. He watched other teachers having to struggle with Harry’s inability to be obedient as Harry corrected those who were supposed to be training him. They treated him with a complicated respect, torn between letting him be just another young man in training to become an Auror and between accepting that he had seen action far beyond what they might ever expect to, that he had defeated Voldemort and nothing could ever really top that feat. Had he had eyes, Severus might have rolled his at the impudence, but he also found himself hesitating. Unlike at school, Harry had learnt some tact. His interruptions and corrections were phrased more politely than they once had been, and they were no longer disruptions but statements that Severus found himself agreeing with. Statements that, as Severus listened, seemed to be awfully familiar. Phrases he himself had once imparted on the student body, despite his constant despair that they would never pay attention to them. Notes that he had scrawled in the margins of his old Potions textbook. Information that he had never believed Harry to have taken in, but now it was being repeated almost reverently.

It made him reassess Harry, looking at him in a new way. He noticed the way in which, when he was home alone, Harry would more often than not spend hours pouring over that old textbook, reading and rereading the notes far more religiously than he did the actual text. Severus agreed that the text was substandard, but he had never before had anyone else seem to agree so completely. He didn’t know how to feel. Maybe there was something in Harry’s confession, that they could have both been spared a lot of grief had they worked together properly. He still held that it was mostly Harry’s fault, though he would admit that he had never really given the boy a chance. Harry seemed to agree with him, which was the most disturbing thing. 

He grew bored of the constant, repetitive conversations with Poppy. She had never liked him. It was fair, few people had liked him. Only Lily had really liked him, briefly. He visited her grave, haunting it just as he haunted her son. He had haunted them both for most of his life, only now he was closer to death, closer to being a ghost. Maybe he should die, he thought abstractly. Maybe it would be easier. But a part of him didn’t want to. He didn’t want to find out if there was anything after death. He didn’t want to be a ghost that lingered on in Hogwarts. He didn’t want to pass on and find that he would meet all those he had known in life. To once again face Albus’s disappointment, to once again see how badly he had failed Lily. He would rather continue to be a nothingness, watching over Harry. Even if he was powerless.

Poppy had disliked him when he was a student, and that had never changed. She had always liked Lupin, always caring for him. He had been constantly in her care, a consequence of his lycanthropy. It didn’t matter that it had been the Marauders that started it, or that it had been four against one as it always was, all that really mattered was that one of his jinxes had hit and she had never quite forgiven him for wounding the boy she had taken such a shine to. The boy she felt so much sympathy for, due to his unfortunate condition. So even as a teacher, Severus had continued to do as he had done as a teenager, avoiding the Hospital Wing and healing himself as best he could. If he needed a second pair of hands, he went to Filch who was always happy to oblige.

That last year she had hated him, a step up from the passive dislike. Everyone had hated him. The Order, for killing Dumbledore. The students, who had always hated him to some degree, hating him more openly. The Death Eaters, hating him for his blood status and the way he held Voldemort’s favour, presumably now changed to hatred at the way he had betrayed them so long ago, played them all for fools. And even Voldemort, who had always hated him in his own way, as he hated most people. Severus couldn’t blame any of them much, he had hated himself for much of his life. 

So when Harry said, “I think I loved you,” to his body, Severus could not have been more surprised. The only people who had ever professed to loving him had been his mother and Lily, both relationships that had ended in screaming retributions and heartbreak. He discounted Tonks and their messy, disastrous relationship, knowing that it hadn’t really been him that she was speaking to. It had never been him. Just another lover in a long line who he had played that same game with. Another relationship that hadn’t really been about the two involved but rather of replacing the holes inside. He had thought he loved Alice, but he had known better to say so, and that had crashed and burned as those things always did. Muggle men had been easier, casual moments that he could shrug off as he disappeared from their lives before any complications could ensue, returning to Hogwarts and his classes, detentions and marking.

“Hermione pretty much said as much,” Harry was saying, a nostalgic smile on his face, “It was the way I obsessed over the Half-Blood Prince, who had written all over the book that came into my possession. Of course, I didn’t know it was you. I wonder if that would have changed things, if I had been better at putting things together rather than jumping to conclusions? But I think I was rather in love with that boy. He was a bit nasty, but he was funny with it. And so brilliant. So clever. I should have seen that it was you, really. It’s harder to appreciate your wit when it was so often directed towards me, you know. You hid everything away far too good, though I suppose if you could fool Voldemort then it’s no surprise that you could fool me. I should have known better, though. You saved me, so many times, even all the way back in first year. I never did say thank you for that, did I? Or apologise for suspecting you the whole time? You made it so easy to believe that you were my enemy that I overlooked all the proof to the contrary.”

Harry went quiet for a bit, and Severus wondered how he would have reacted had Harry turned up full of grateful apologies. Embarrassed, maybe, at the idea of someone knowing how hard he had tried to keep the stupid boy alive? Angry, at Albus for revealing his better nature even though it was now clear that Albus had never believed him to have one? Would it have softened his feelings towards Harry, warmer feelings rather than the grudging care he gave to all the students he was honour-bound to protect? Would it have made it harder, even harder, to allow the poor boy to walk to his death, knowing that there was no other option?

“I was so betrayed when you killed Dumbledore,” Harry continued reflectively, “We all were. But I had fallen in love with you, stupidly, and then I found out all at once that the person I had fallen for was both you and you were a Death Eater. Only, that was a cover. You were too good as a spy, but I guess that’s something I should be thanking you for. We all should be, apologising and thanking you for all you did. I just wish you could hear it.”

Severus could hear it, and he wasn’t sure how he felt about it. As if he shouldn’t be hearing it, it seemed too private a confession, but it was directed to him, both his physical being and him in general. The him that stayed, not quite alive but definitely not dead. And he watched, more curious than ever, as Harry interacted with his friends. The guilt on Lovegood and Ginevra Weasley’s faces, and the way the strained smile Harry gave them had changed into a real smile of real happiness, genuinely glad for them even if it was at his expense. He could understand that. He had always hoped that no matter what he may have thought of James Potter that he had made Lily happy. That her life had been perfect and full of joy, the kind of life that most people can only dream of. He watched as Harry stayed resolutely out of the ins and outs of the relationship between Granger and Ron Weasley, letting them argue things out and decide how to proceed on their own. 

“Maybe it’s just as well you can’t hear me,” Harry said again, another day, “Spilling all my secrets to you. I’m sure you would be annoyed. I don’t really know why I keep coming back, maybe because I know you’d never just let me go. Maybe because once I got over all my anger and shock, I started to fall in love with you again, only now it’s worse than ever before. Then you were just my teacher and you hated me, then you killed Dumbledore. Now, you’re my ex-teacher, you killed Dumbledore, you protected me my whole life because you loved my mother, a hero of the wizarding world and there’s nothing left inside you.”

Severus felt a certain hint of guilt, at listening and at causing the sadness that was in those green eyes. They had helped him, when he lay close to death, barely able to fulfil his duty and give Harry the memories that would impart the necessary information. He cursed Albus, again. Making him a murderer. Making him the one who had to tell Harry the truth, that the Horcrux was inside his scar and so he needed to die. Saving every single distasteful job just for Severus, as that was his purpose in life. To get his hands dirty so better people could remain pure.

He had watched as Harry had, in a completely futile attempt, poked the silvery strands of his memories from the Pensieve to his head, as if reintroducing those memories might somehow induce the essence of Severus to return to his body. Severus had been concerned by the manner in which Harry had jabbed his head with his wand, and had been glad that he couldn’t feel it. It looked like it would have been painful otherwise. The memories had stayed silvery wisps, unable to enter into a body that lacked the necessary spirit to host them. Severus had felt something strange at the expression of disheartened disappointment on Harry’s face, as if he had never expected it to work but had still hoped that it would. As if he didn’t want to be the cause of that, as if he wanted to do something to remove the sorrow from that face that so strongly reminded him of a man he had hated with such a passion, the face of a boy who had been a constant thorn in his side. An albatross hanging around his neck, to remind him of his sins.

It was another day, when Harry had fallen silent, holding his hand that had no response left in it. Contemplating yet another walk round the grounds while it was still easy, before the students would arrive for term. Then there would be further complications. He had been talking with Poppy, about what to do. Wondering about bringing Severus back to his house, or giving up and giving him to St Mungo’s. Harry wanted to take him home, so reluctant to let him go, but also accepting that there as nothing he could do. That it would be better to change his visiting patterns to always going to St Mungo’s rather than the Hospital Wing. That Severus couldn’t remain alive but not really for the rest of his natural lifespan.

Harry had rested his head over Severus’s limp hand, his forehead touching it, almost crushed by defeat. As if he was finally grieving another victim of the war, as if his hope was at an end. Severus thought, as he had been doing slowly all the while as he watched. About the idea that there was someone who wanted him alive, not to use him as a tool but to know him as a person. About the idea that Harry liked him, even loved him. About the way he had always cared, no matter how much he had shirked from showing it and how incredulous Albus had considered the mere idea. About how he liked the person Harry had become. About how he was starting to wish that he could answer the questions, answer the rambling monologues. About how he was starting to wish that he could feel the hand holding his own. 

Severus moved, changing his vague drifting, and resettled in his body. For a moment, he regretted it. He could feel all the stiffness and discomfort that came with having a body. His body had been well looked after, but he was thirsty. His muscles were stiff, in need of stretching, requiring more than the occasional gentle stroll around the castle. His eyes had not focused in a long time, leaving his vision blurry. His ears were unaccustomed to transferring sound competently, his brain unaccustomed to interpreting it all. But he was alive again.

He came round a little while later, having fainted, the first sign to Harry that he was alive again. It meant that he had missed Harry’s reaction, but that didn’t matter. It was Harry’s eyes that he saw when he opened his eyes again. Just as they had been the last thing he saw as he had faded from his body. Bright green eyes that looked at him with tense delight, as if hardly daring to speak when he had been so free with words before, when he had thought there was no one to hear his rambling confessions.

“You’re alive,” Harry whispered, happy beyond belief, a reaction Severus had not expected but now he wasn’t entirely surprised.

“Yes,” he said, his voice creaking, rusty through disuse. There was a lot that needed to be said, but he couldn’t say it yet. His voice needed to recover, to readjust to being used. He needed to remember what it was like to form words and sentences, to express his thoughts. He needed to sort through the warm tenderness that filled his heart when he looked at Harry, a sensation that was more clear now he was back inside his body rather than an abstract existence.

“Just in time for term,” he said in that scratchy voice, as if he had simply taken a holiday. As if it had been a summer trip away, rather than an abandoning of his body and a flirtation with death. As if he had always intended to return after a brief sojourn and simply pick up where he had left off. As if there weren’t questions to be answered, issues to be dealt with. As if he was still a teacher, and still wanted to be one, even when he had no idea what he would do given the freedom to chose. 

It was disorientating, the idea of people wanting him. Being glad that he had survived. Minerva cried, clinging to him and begging for his forgiveness, and Severus for a moment wished he wasn’t there in his body but outside of it. But he patted her, awkwardly, and quit his job. He didn’t think it was right any more, he had never been a popular teacher. He had become Headmaster though illicit means. And Minerva had objected, pleading with him to reconsider. So he had thought about it, as Harry suggested that really he should be teaching the Aurors and it felt like he was being pulled in all kinds of different directions, but not in the way he always had been. As if he had options available to him, and could chose what he wanted not what he was led towards. And throughout it all, his focus was still Harry, now that they could speak, a strange renegotiation of a relationship that had formed a backbone of their lives for years, now torn down to be rebuilt, the misunderstandings fading away as they began anew. 

So it felt like a natural conclusion, the first time he and Harry kissed, as if there never had been another ending available to them. As if it wasn’t an ending, like it was in stories, but a beginning. Their new beginning, of life after their deaths, life after Voldemort, life after Albus. A life that belonged to them, where Harry was just Harry, not the chosen one, and Severus was Severus, not a spy.


End file.
